"If this is being a loser, everyone should be the loser I am. It has been an incredible life." -- Red Klotz

Louis "Red" Klotz, the player, coach and owner of the Washington Generals -- the Harlem Globetrotters' victims for more than 60 years -- died Saturday at age 93.

Klotz, who formed a partnership with the Globetrotters in the 1950s, assembled teams by the names of the Boston Shamrocks, New Jersey Reds, New York Nationals, International Elite, Global Select and World All-Stars to face the Globetrotters.

And, according to the script, lose time and again.

"The Harlem Globetrotters organization is extremely saddened by the passing of Red Klotz, and our deepest sympathies go out to his entire family," Globetrotters CEO Kurt Schneider said in a statement. "Red was truly an ambassador of the sport and as much a part of the Globetrotters' legacy as anyone ever associated with the organization. ... His love of the game -- and his love of people -- will certainly be missed."

Here's a profile on the incomparable Klotz published by The Star-Ledger in 2006:

By KEVIN MANAHAN
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

When the cold-nosed alarm clock nuzzles his hand at 5:45 a.m., he rolls gently out of bed, careful not to awaken his wife. He pulls on his sweats and sneakers and heads for his morning walk on the beach. Minutes later, on the sand with Shane, his frolicking Irish setter, he breathes in the salt air and stretches as the sunrise glints off the water.

Ah, life is good.

In the shadow of his three-story beachfront home in Margate, where the surf murmurs in his back yard, Red Klotz, the biggest loser in the history of sports, smiles. And why not? He is wealthy. He is 85 years old, and -- that bowlegged walk aside -- he is in phenomenal physical condition. He is loved by his wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and thousands who have come to know him. And he is adored by his tail-wagging best friend.

"If this is being a loser, everyone should be the loser I am," Klotz says. "It has been an incredible life."

He has a winning percentage of about .0002856, give or take a few zeros in the front. You see, as the coach who has spent his life losing to the Harlem Globetrotters, he isn't sure exactly how many times he has been beaten. Pick a number, and Klotz won't debate it. The bigger, the better. He embraces his legacy of futility. Back in 1995, a magazine article, now framed and hung on his home-office wall, estimated the number at 13,000.

"Sounds about right," Klotz says.

So, we do some grade-school math and round off the new total to 15,000.

"Sounds about right," Klotz says.

But could it be more?

"Of course," Klotz says. "Might be 20,000. Who knows? Who cares?"

Nobody has lost like Red Klotz. Close your eyes, spin the globe and blindly poke your finger at it. See that country? Chances are, he has lost there. After all, he has lost in 117 of them. Name a major city in the United States. Has probably lost there, too, because there have been about 1,500 different U.S. datelines on those drubbings. He has lost in more states than McGovern and Mondale combined. He has suffered defeats on aircraft carriers, military bases, in the world's greatest arenas and on empty lots in Third World nations. He has been beaten in front of popes, princes, dictators, lepers and itchy-fingered soldiers with anti-assault rifles.

He hasn't lost on another planet yet, but advances in space travel give him hope. He has lost in front of 12 million fans. His teams have won four times in 53 years.

But here's the good news: "I'll never get fired," he says.

In one stretch, there were 8,829 consecutive losses until his team — then called the New Jersey Nationals — beat the Globetrotters in Austria in 1995 with ringers that included former NBA stars Kareem Adbul-Jabbar, Artis Gilmore and Nate Archibald. But no one knows the exact number of total losses. Not Klotz, not the people in the Globetrotters offices. He recalls a special victory in 1971: Klotz, still playing at 51, made the winning shot at the buzzer.

In the beginning, Globetrotters founder Abe Saperstein pitted his showmen in shorts against local teams. The Globetrotters always won, but they often alienated the home crowd, which wanted to see their guys win and didn't like their fathers and brothers being shown up with the basketball tomfoolery. So Klotz, fresh from his short NBA career as a 67-inch guard, came up with a brilliant idea in 1953 after a team he had assembled beat the Globetrotters twice:

Take the opponent on the road. And he would be the owner and coach.

Fifty-five one-year contracts later, he is still coaching, having led numerous teams that have served as patsies for the Globetrotters. Last night, at the Sovereign Bank Arena, Klotz's New York Nationals lost again to the Globetrotters, just as they had lost to them at the Continental Airlines Arena last month, just as they had lost to them at Stockton College in Pomona last week, and in Delaware and Pennsylvania before that.

Klotz insists his teams have never been told to lay down, but it's tough to win when you have to let the other guys pull your shorts down.

"Loser is just a label," Klotz says. "But people love losers. Look at the Brooklyn Dodgers. If that's my legacy, if that's how people remember me, that's okay with me."
THE OLD GUY CAN SHOOT

It's a Friday afternoon at the community center on Jerome Avenue in Margate, and Klotz arrives too late for the morning pickup games with the doctors, lawyers, cab drivers and anyone with a jump shot and a pair of Adidases. Some high school players are shooting at one basket, 13-year-old Michael DeYoung is chucking left-handed bricks at another.

"Pass the ball back to me after I shoot?" Klotz asks the kid.

DeYoung rolls his eyes as if to say, "Hey, grandpa, I'm shooting here. Shag your own balls." But he politely does it anyway, and the leprechaun-looking geezer with red hair dribbles behind the 3-point line and throws up a two-handed set shot.

Swish!

The kid, who has never witnessed a two-handed set shot, wonders: "Did I just see what I think I saw?" He throws the ball back.

Swish!

Klotz hits the first six in a row from behind the arc, and now the kid is sprinting after the ball and firing it back. Meanwhile, at the other end of the court, Alex Middleworth and Chris Stagliano, two local high school basketball players, have stopped to watch. Middlesworth is giving his buddy the scouting report on the old man shooting the lights out.

"He's the Globetrotter guy," he says.

Middlesworth played against Klotz in a series of pickup games last summer on the outdoor court. By the end of the day, Middlesworth had one strategy: "Get on the same team." He didn't want the assignment of covering Klotz.

"Nobody wants to get clowned," Middlesworth says.

Clowned?

"Made to look silly," he says. "That old man will make you look silly. He never gets tired, and he never misses. When we pick teams, the guys who have never seen him before say, `I got him.' They learn their lesson pretty quick."

Klotz's shooting is legendary from Margate to Del Mar. Once, in Boston Garden in the 1980's, Klotz took on Celtics great Larry Bird in a 3-point contest. John Ferrari, Klotz's son-in-law who helps him run the team, remembers.

Donald Johnson, a sharp-shooting guard from Elizabeth High School, is the Nationals' best player. He was the high scorer against the Globetrotters in Pomona on Wednesday night, nailing several long 3-pointers. But even he won't shoot against Klotz.

"During my first couple of years here, he was always trying to get guys to play him in H-O-R-S-E before the games," Johnson said. "Nobody could beat him. So we just stopped trying. The guy is amazing."

Klotz chuckles at the remarks. He brags about a time when he got hot and made "a bunch" of 3-pointers in a row. Thirty-six, actually. The losses he doesn't count, but the 3-pointers he does.

The Nationals are a special breed. They have to play hard, but not screw up the routines. On one possession, they'll dive for a loose ball and drive hard to the basket for a layup. Then, on defense, they'll fall for that same weave routine the Globetrotters have been doing since their first game in the Garden of Eden, or have to play while carrying a purse the Globetrotters have confiscated from a fan. Who are these guys Klotz has recruited? College players, mostly.

"I tell them, if you want to see the world, if you can play 110 games in 100 nights, if you have a sense of humor and won't get upset when they make fun of you, if you think this beats pushing a piece of paper across a desk, then this is for you," Ferrari says.

"Usually, they play for two or three years, then move on. But they tell us, `Thanks for the best time of my life. I'm going to tell my grandkids I played against the Globetrotters.'"

But, as Johnson says, "We won't tell `em about all of the losses."

A WINNING TEAM

Back home, Gloria Klotz worries about her soulmate. They met on the beach in Atlantic City when Louis, his real name, was 14 and she was 12. They have been together ever since . . . except, of course, when Red has been on the road, which has been, oh, about 60 percent of the time.

"The perfect marriage," she jokes.

Now, when he leaves, it's for hours or days, instead of weeks or months. He'll travel as far as Chicago, leaving the longer trips to Ferrari. When Klotz is at the gym and the phone rings, she always thinks it's the paramedics calling. It never is.

"Red's father got remarried and went on a honeymoon at 86," she says. "So that's the stock he comes from. But, look at the car he drives. It's 10 years old and it needs a tuneup. Thank God, he doesn't like new things. That's why I'm still around."

She is keeping up just fine. Like him, she is amazingly trim and quite chic. Her white hair is cut short and parted on one side for a cosmopolitan look. She is wearing a white blouse with bold blue stripes, and she has about a dozen gold bracelets on her right wrist. She will undergo hip-replacement surgery, but she shrugs that off. A little pain? It's no big deal.

"I need the new hip to stay up with him," she says. "There are plenty of young women out there looking for a man . . ."

She winks.

She has heard all of the stories many times: The buses slipping off icy roads during snowstorms and stopping inches short of ravines. The time when the Globetrotters played at a leper colony in the Philippine jungle, and her husband was afraid "my arm would fall off on a fast break." The time when the team plane landed in Brussels minutes after terrorists had shot up the airport. The time in Iran when Klotz left the basketballs on the bus and was almost shot when he tried to fetch them. The time when he was stopped at the Lebanese border on the eve of a war with Israel, and the soldiers wondered if they should shoot the little Jewish guy.

"I should have died many times," Klotz said. "But I didn't."

Instead, he has helped promote the game all over the world. Along the way, he has met, among others, Pope John Paul II, Douglas McArthur, Neil Armstrong, Nikita Krushchev, Evita Peron and Prince Rainier, not to mention the Hall of Famers. Not bad for a near-sighted kid who had to sneak off to the court because his parents thought basketball was a waste of time.

Klotz boasts there is no one who has run more miles on a basketball court, and who would debate him? Each day, his personal odometer spins for a few more. Ferrari predicts Klotz will never retire, so who knows how many more losses lie ahead?

"Somebody has to lose to the Globetrotters," Klotz said. "But I was smart enough to make a career out of it."